Enchanting the field: where should the history of Victorian and Edwardian religion and belief go from here?

This essay assesses the extent to which historians of the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries have responded to calls to integrate religion and belief to cultural and social methodologies and refocus analysis away from secularisation. It contends that more work is required and suggests alternative frameworks to bring to light the distinctive and often implicit workings of religious belief, spirituality, and notions of the sacred that permeated ordinary people's lives. By focusing on three recent methodological 'turns' - personal, material, and emotional - the paper invites historians to consider a more symbiotic relationship between religion, belief, culture, and society, than is currently the case.